


And you see me, somebody new

by psychomachia



Category: Far Cry 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 13:39:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13660131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychomachia/pseuds/psychomachia
Summary: Ajay goes to Kyrat a little earlier than expected.





	And you see me, somebody new

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neverminetohold](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverminetohold/gifts).



### 10

The first time Ajay knows something is seriously wrong with his mother is when she collapses in their house and she rushes to the hospital. He sits for hours in the waiting room, as people in white coats rush around and a nurse tries to get him to eat some Jell-O. It's red so he says no.

It's not like things haven't been strange for a while. There's equipment in their house and they've had a nurse in for a while who comes and stays with his mom. They won't tell him what's going on, but he knows she has to be sick because she goes to the hospital when he's at school and sometimes there's a neighbor that picks him up. She won't tell him either.

He wants answers and no one gives them. And now that he's sitting in some stupid plastic chair with a coloring book they gave him, he knows that it's really bad and all he can think is why won't anyone talk to me?

Eventually, they tell him he can go see her and he walks into a room to find his mom, smiling weakly at him from a hospital bed with a bunch of tubes in her and holding out her arms. He rushes over to her and buries his head in her side. She strokes his head.

“My sweet child,” she says. “I wish I could have given you more time.”

“Mom,” he says, and he's trying not to cry.

“I didn't want to do this,” she says. “But there's no one else who can take care of you--”

He's trying not to cry too loud because he knows that this is important and she's crying too and he didn't want to make her upset.

“Just promise me something,” his mother says.

“Anything.”

“Promise me you won't let Kyrat change you too much,” and she kisses him on the top of his head.

Ajay doesn't know what she means and wants to ask, but then some machines beep and he's taken out of the room as the white-coated figures come back.

That's the last time he sees his mom.

* * *

He doesn't really remember much of the days after that. He knows that he cries a lot and that people are talking in low, kind voices which don't help him at all because it won't bring his mom back. They give him an urn, which he knows has his mom, and it's too small for someone like her.

There are men in suits, too, who whisper around him and say things like state department and diplomats and who would send a kid to that hellhole of a country.

But in the end, most of them go away and one day he's told that's he going to live in his mother's homeland, Kyrat, and be taken care of by a man named Pagan.

The man who tells him this tries not to look uneasy, but Ajay's had enough practice with people lying to him now about everything being okay, so he knows that he's not convinced.

“It's okay,” he says to him. “I'll be fine.” Because what other choice does he have?

So there's a series of planes and airports and people holding his hand through checkpoints and he sleeps through quite a bit of it before the final one where they tell him he's in India and he rubs his eyes blearily to see a strange new world he's only seen in National Geographics he read at the library.

When Ajay gets off the plane, there's some men in red berets and uniforms off to the side near a smaller plane. There's a man in front of them in a suit who talks to the woman holding Ajay's hand and hands her some papers. He can't hear what they're saying.

She lets go and pats his shoulder. “Take care,” she says, and walks away.

The man crouches down to talk to him. “My name's Paul. Your uncle wanted to come meet you, but things are... difficult right now.”

“Uncle?”

“Pagan Min.” He smiles. “He's very excited to meet you.”

* * *

The man in front of him is kind of strange. He's wearing some sort of pink suit with a bright floral shirt and he's grinning. He looks like he's been sick, because he's thin like Ajay's mother was, but when he hugs Ajay, it's really tightly.

“Oh, my boy,” he says. “I'm so glad you're home.”

And that is how Ajay meets Pagan.

### 13

Pagan Min isn't really an adult, Ajay thinks.

He's spent the last three years living in the palace since he's not allowed to go anywhere. Pagan says it's too dangerous what with all the vermin running around the country and until he can get rid of them, Ajay needs to be kept safe. So the only views he gets of Kyrat are from high above, looking down on the rest of the country.

He gets tutors, too, ones that change far more frequently than he expects. Some of them are good, some of them are mediocre, but most are terrified-looking people who praise him way too much.

“Of course they do,” Pagan says as they eat dinner together. “You're a brilliant boy.”

Pagan is a little biased and also really weird.

He won't let Ajay listen to the radio because it would “spoil his brain” but he'll let him fire a rocket launcher from a balcony. He won't let him go outside but Ajay can eat anything he wants for dinner, even candy and Coke Pagan has shipped him from some black market source. He'll give him anything he wants, but he won't tell him why he returns some days covered in blood and ashes.

As a parent, Pagan is a terrible one.

He's not sure how he feels about him as a person.

* * *

“Sometimes, when a man and woman love each other very much, they have a baby. And then that woman decides that the man is a fucking asshole and goes to love a better man with excellent fashion sense and they--”

“Hold it right there!” Ajay says, as Pagan sways a little in his chair. “Are you giving me the sex talk?”

He looks shifty, but says nothing.

“Because you know, I've had that talk already. With Noore.”

“Noore?”

“She said you weren't behaving responsibly and as a boy approaching puberty, I should be made aware of certain bodily functions. There were diagrams and everything.” Ajay shudders. “And now I don't ever want to have sex in my life.

Pagan looks murderously offended. “See, this is why I should have given you the talk. Because sex is a magical thing between people of any gender or sex, I don't judge people's identities, who may or may not be in a committed relationship--”

Ajay thinks he'd rather go listen to Noore's talk again.

* * *

Paul's pretty sympathetic about the whole thing.

“Kid, you have to understand,” he says, “that you're dealing with a genius.” There's some whimpering coming from behind him but he and Ajay ignore it.

“He's not a genius,” he says. “He doesn't even know how to cook eggs. I asked him and he said he'd fly in a chef immediately. I just wanted them scrambled.”

“I didn't say he was practical. Look, he took over the country with an army at the age of 21. I was still screwing around in college at that age. I'd cut him a little slack for not picking up some of the more basic skills.”

Ajay sighs. “It's just... I don't understand him at all.”

“No one does.”

“Not even Yuma?”

Paul snorts. “Especially not her. But don't tell her I said that.”

“Like I talk to her.” Ajay shudders.

He may like Paul, he may be fond of Noore, but Yuma is a scary fucking bitch who once called his mother a filthy whore in Chinese when she thought he couldn't understand her and for that, he'll never forgive her.

He'll let Pagan take care of her, though. He has a feeling there's a plan to all of this, one he can't see, and if that means sucking it up a bit longer, he'll do it.

### 16

It turns out that Pagan was right about the whole not going outside thing, Ajay thinks as he lies against the floor of the hut, trying to free his wrists from the rope binding them. He'll have to apologize to him later for escaping and incapacitating half a dozen guards.

But seriously, he's spent the last six years cooped up indoors and although it's very nice that Pagan's willing to give him his very own pet tiger (“As many as you want!”), it's no substitute for fresh air and nature and getting attacked by giant eagles.

The last might have been a factor in why he was too distracted to notice the jeep barreling down upon him and the bag going over his head until it was too late. Then it was some long, bumpy ride with people whispering next to him and he thinks he heard the word “Mohan,” so that's definitely bad.

The door flies open and he looks up. Yep, three men staring at him, holding rifles. Probably Golden Path then. Pagan's warned him enough about them, so he guesses it makes sense that the first time he gets some freedom, he's kidnapped immediately.

“I'm telling you this is a mistake,” one of the men hisses to another. “He's Mohan's son. He'll join us.”

“He's not one of us,” the other one says. “He's Pagan's. We can't trust him.”

The third one grips his gun tightly and says, “It's the only option. Pagan can't use him anymore as a symbol.”

The first one looks upset. “We can talk to him. Reason with him.”

“I've heard your arguments, Sabal,” the second one says. “You already know our minds are made up.”

“But--” and he trails off. “He's just a kid.”

“You weren't at that age. He's old enough to know how to be a threat.”

It's funny, Ajay thinks, that he can listen to people arguing about killing him and think, oh, you poor bastards. Pagan's going to burn everything you love to the ground. Not just your family or friends or villages but anyone who's ever made contact with you. Maybe even people who've met people who've met you.

He wouldn't put it past Pagan to set the entire world on fire, and that's when he realizes how much he misses him.

How much he wants him here.

And that he's sorry that once again, Pagan's going to lose someone he loves. Mom... Lakshmana... him.

Sorry for making you care, Ajay thinks, since it's just going to fuck you up harder.

But that doesn't mean he's giving up quite yet.

The men seemed to have reached an agreement, because the one they call Sabal looks over at Ajay and shakes his head. “Sorry, brother. Maybe we'll meet in another life.” He walks out of the hut and Ajay's left with two men who are going to kill him.

One of them raises their gun. “I had to kill people I know and love. That blood is on Pagan's hands.”

“Wait!” Ajay says. He's able to squeeze out a few tears, look like the innocent teenager he's never been. “At least let me pray before you end my life.” They won't know what he believes in, but he's betting between his sad eyes, some residual respect for his dickhead father, and fear for their soul, he can squeeze a little bit of time to do something.

The remaining man looks at the one aiming his gun. “He has the right. We're not monsters.”

“Fine,” he says. “I'll give you two minutes to make your peace.”

Two minutes, Ajay thinks, will be long enough to bow his head, clasp his hands, and be in range of the knife in the man's boot. That's their first mistake. The second one is tying his hands in front of him. Man, the quality of recruits these days must be pretty bad. The 'resistance' is really going downhill.

He's grateful for his fucked up childhood . Pagan may not have ever wanted him to leave safety, but it didn't mean he didn't prepare him for danger. After all, the Golden Path are wolves at the door, and you need to know how to put one down when it invades your home.

He gets on his knees and leans forward, faking unsteadiness. The men are looking at him with contempt? Pity? He doesn't really care, since it means that he's able to grab the knife from the boot, and with one sudden, fluid movement they don't see coming, stand up and push the knife to the hilt in one of their necks.

The remaining man, spattered with his colleague's blood, takes one shocked second too long to react and so he's not prepared for Ajay to grab the already cocked rifle from the dying man's body and fire it point blank at him.

The man's head explodes and Ajay's ears ring.

They're still ringing as he feels the vibrations of boots pounding against the earth. There are more people coming and Ajay doesn't know how many bullets he has. Enough to put a few more down? He no longer has surprise on his side.

But he still has the capacity to be surprised as Pagan Min comes barreling through the door, Uzi at his side. The man is panting violently and there's blood smearing his face.

“You know it could have been a trap,” Ajay hears himself say muffledly, “You shouldn't have come.”

“Shut up,” Pagan says, and grasps him fiercely in a hug. “We'll talk later.”

He hugs him back and begins to cry for real.

It's just occurred to him that he's killed two men and the only thing he cares about is if Pagan's okay. This is probably not a good thing.

It becomes an actual problem later on, when he's washing the blood from his body while Pagan stomps around the palace ordering extra guards on all the entrances and the army to go burn a few suspected Golden Path safehouses to the ground and Ajay realizes that he loves him.

Is in love with him.

Fuck, he thinks. I'm sorry, Mom. I promise I'll get over this.

### 18

“I love you.”

Pagan looks up from his sushi. “What brought on this confession? No, don't tell me. You snuck around and found my birthday present for you. I knew that elephant couldn't stay quiet.”

“That's not what I—you got me an elephant?”

“Well, it would have been a leopard, but it mauled four of my guards who were trying to capture it. Ungrateful creature.”

Ajay shakes his head. “As great as that gesture is, that's not what I'm getting at. I mean, I love you. Like...” He stops and winces. It's going to sound fucked up, but it's probably the only way he can make it perfectly clear to Pagan. “Like my mother loved you.”

“My boy, I don't think--”

“I'm not your child and I'm not a boy any longer. I'm a man,” he snaps at him. “You can call me Ajay.”

“Ajay, then,” Pagan says, his tone cool. “I don't think you've thought this through. Perhaps what you're feeling is some sort of crush, no doubt spawned out of a lack of contact with available partners. I blame myself for my overprotective nature--”

“Just stop,” he says desperately. “I've had two years to come to terms with what I thought was a teenage crush brought on by some sort of rescue complex and it's not some passing phase caused by raging hormones.”

Pagan's eyes narrow as something clicks in his brain. “Please tell me you didn't run this by Noore, because she's been rather useful to me lately and I would hate to think she's been keeping secrets from me.”

“Of course not,” Ajay lies. “Anyhow, I'm letting you know it's not that. I don't know what it is exactly, but it's not some sort of passing thing and it's not going to go away. And I think we need to talk about this because--”

“Ajay.” It's Pagan's quiet, calm voice. The same one he uses when he talks about Ajay's mother. About his sister. About all the things he regrets in his life.

“But I need you to understand--”

“No, Ajay.” He's not yelling, but it still stops Ajay in his tracks, stills the words in his throat. “You don't know what you're saying. Because you don't know what that kind of love is. You've never known. And I'm sorry for that.”

And Ajay doesn't know what his face is showing, but it's enough to make Pagan walk to him, putting his hand on his shoulder. He pats it gently. “I'm sorry for everything that's happened to you since you came here.”

It's like there's a wave of white noise rushing through Ajay's head, drowning everything but Pagan's voice out as he says, “I never should have let you come here.”

He walks out of the room and Ajay is left alone at the breakfast table. Happy birthday to me, he thinks. Good job on your first day of being a terrible adult. Mom would be so proud.

Sometime tonight, there will be a huge party for him, with fireworks and explosions and probably a very terrified elephant, but for right now, it's silent in the room.

He's just fucked things up royally and he doesn't even know where to begin to fix them.

(And the next morning, when he wakes up to a passport on his nightstand, a slew of shiny new credit cards in his wallet, and a troop of guards waiting to take him to the Kyrat International Airport, he knows just how badly it's gone wrong.)

 

### 21

He spends the next three years kicking around the world since it's pretty clear that Pagan doesn't want him home anytime soon. You don't send someone a military escort to make sure they leave the country and have your intentions misunderstood.

Ajay can't say it's completely horrible to be on his own. He's young, he's got no expectations for his future, and he's got enough money to fuck around without worrying about running out. Pagan may have kicked him out, but he didn't cut him off.

Surprisingly, he finds that for a time, it makes him more responsible. He doesn't want to blow through Pagan's money and prove him right that he's still a kid who makes stupid, irresponsible decisions. He does the student hostel route, eats at cheap food stands, and most importantly, starts figuring out his love life.

He doesn't go back to America like he might have wanted to when he was a child. There's nothing left for him there anyhow – everyone he loves is in Kyrat, including his mother, resting next to Lakshmana. (If he died out here, he wonders once, will he end up in a polished urn next to them too, for Pagan to treat as another reason to destroy everything.)

He sleeps with Mingzhu in Hong Kong and Hideaki in Osaka and it's fun and eventually good a few times later, but he doesn't feel any sort of serious connection. They're beautiful, bright people but his heart is still hung up on a man two decades older than him who taught him how to shoot a target and pick out a good suit, but not how to let go of something you probably won't ever be able to have.

There are more people Ajay dates, occasionally sleeps with, and has at least a few drunken shouting matches at 3 am in a canal. He hitchhikes, catching rides with people, wondering if any of them will try to rob them and really pitying them if they try. It's likely that he's the most dangerous one in the car. He goes on trains, seeing rolling green hills and wide blue seas, riding the rails as long as he can because he has no real destination. He can go anywhere in the world, except the place he wants to actually go.

At 21, Pagan was conquering a country. Ajay can't even be bothered to get out of bed some days.

### 25

It turns out there's only so much aimless wandering you can do before you realize that your life is pretty empty and meaningless. Ajay is just surprised it took him seven years to figure that out.

Because he's bored. Seriously, mind-numbingly bored. So bored he's ready to do stupid things like go on a drunken bender or set something on fire or take a lot of drugs.

The last one actually sounds pretty good to him, right now. Pagan was always doing it and while he's pretty sure that doing anything Pagan does regularly is a recipe for disaster, he's in the mood to fuck his life up some more. How much worse can it get after all?

Turns out a lot because he's not sure what that dealer gave him but he's tripping serious balls right now and it's really hot in the room and it would be really stupid if after all he survived in Kyrat, he ends up dying to some fucked up concoction he got from a dude named Pancakes.

“Sorry,” he says out loud. “I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry that I didn't do more with my life and I'm sorry that I'm this much of a fuck-up and I'm sorry that I fell in love with someone who doesn't love me back.”

That last part really hurts to say, and he closes his eyes, both to block out tears and to prevent the room from spinning any faster than it already is. That's also a bad idea because he can't open his eyes and he's pretty sure his heart's going to burst out of his chest.

And with pounding in his ears and a realization that he has finally fucked up his life for good this time, Ajay Ghale passes out.

* * *

It's a bit of a surprise that he wakes up, but it's a nice one. Granted, Ajay regains consciousness in a private hospital room with a tube down his throat and a bunch of machines hooked up to him, but in the grand scheme of things, he can live with that.

Since, you know, he's alive.

He spends the next several days in his room with doctors and nurses running tests. They're too professional to give him disapproving looks for overdosing, but he still feels stupid about it and he wants to squirm any time they mention how he could have died.

Hospitals are efficient these days, though, and he's discharged a week later. There's a clean set of clothes waiting for him along with a suitcase and a woman in a suit waiting for him. She says nothing to him, but hands him an envelope containing his passport, a plane ticket, and a note.

“Come home.”

### 26

Okay, so he's going home to Kyrat. It doesn't mean he's going to do it entirely Pagan's way. This may be what he's been waiting for all this time, but just because the man snaps, doesn't mean he has to respond to it like some desperate dog.

Ajay blows off the plane ticket, takes his suitcase, and decides that fuck it, he'll take the long way around. Even if it means riding a bus for hours on end from the border. Because fuck Pagan. He's an adult and he doesn't need his permission to come home.

(He will not let himself think about how the note or the fact that it's kept against him like some sort of promise)

He's got it under control, he thinks. He'll get off the bus in a few miles, explore for a little bit, and when he feels like it and he's made Pagan squirm a little wondering where he is, he'll show up at the palace. He'll be fine.

And it's right around then that the Royal Guard starts shooting at the bus.

Ajay sighs. Really. It's just his luck.

The bus overturns and he crawls out of it. “You guys are so fucked,” he mutters as he lies on the ground. “

There's a helicopter coming down to land.

“So fucked,” he repeats, as he sees Pagan, looking as good as he remembers in a pair of remarkably bright magenta pants stalk his way over to them. He's homicidally pissed and it's not to Ajay's credit that he's getting a little turned on about it.

It doesn't take long for a soldier to get stabbed in the neck and Ajay winces. He's pretty sure Mom didn't give Pagan that pen as a murder weapon, but really, Pagan's never needed anything special to kill a guy.

“At least there's a silver lining,” he says to the corpse, before looking at Ajay. “You didn't completely fuck it up.”

Ajay gets to his feet. “Things are never easy with you, are they?”

Pagan smiles. “Of course not.” He holds Ajay by the shoulders, examining him. “You look good. Much better than the last time I saw you.”

“The last time you saw me I was 18.”

He shakes his head. “No, the last time I saw you you were in the hospital.” His eyes are sharp. “I really hope you learned your lesson.”

“But you weren't there.”

“Ajay, do you really think that I'd let you go on your own rampaging around the world for eight years and not keep tabs on you?” Pagan's grip tightens on his shoulder. “I always knew where you were."

Then why didn't you bring me home sooner when you realized how miserable I was, he wants to scream at him, but even as he says that, he knows why. It's what he realized when he was a kid. Pagan's not an adult. Pagan's a fucking idiot who only knows he loves someone when they're not there anymore. He did tell him once that men only know they love you in hindsight and maybe that's why Ajay had to leave and nearly die for Pagan to finally get a clue and do something about the epic tragedy that's been their lives.

But what does that even mean at this point to Pagan? Is he going to have to pretend that he has no desire to slam the man up against a wall and fuck him (or vice versa because Ajay's also learned from a few of his lovers that he's a lot more flexible than he'd ever have imagined). Are they going to dance around this shit for weeks? Months? Until one of them gets murdered by a honey badger and confesses their undying love with their last breath? God, he wouldn't put it past Pagan to make him do that melodramatic shit just to get laid.

But as Pagan smiles at him, his hand now caressing his shoulder, he realizes that it really doesn't matter. Whatever he and Pagan have, it doesn't have to have to be planned out or labelled. It doesn't have to be limited. Limits are one of those things, like not letting children have flamethrowers or living in perfect harmony with the native wildlife, that don't belong in Kyrat. And he does. Pagan does. They can't live anywhere else.

His mother feared Kyrat would change him. Pagan is scared he'll blame him for what he's become. But Ajay makes his own choices, lives his own life, and whoever he is now, he won't regret it all.

So Ajay Ghale looks at the sunny sky above him, at the mountains around him, and takes a deep breath. It's a beautiful day in Kyrat. There are soldiers setting stuff on fire, a corpse at his feet and he hasn't even had breakfast yet. All in all, a promising start.

Pagan's slinging an arm around his back and they're both grinning at each other now.

“Because I have cleared my calendar for you! You and I are gonna TEAR SHIT UP!”

It's good to be home.


End file.
